


no friend

by palaces_outofparagraphs



Series: after laughter [2]
Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: 3 years post finale, Confessions, Gen, Sad, Short, alcohol mention, hanna misses mona, hannas baby is named after her mom bc yes pls, mentions of anti ezria, mentions of haleb - Freeform, mentions of spencers drug addiction, mentions of spoby, snapshot moments, the girls out to dinner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 09:56:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11355081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palaces_outofparagraphs/pseuds/palaces_outofparagraphs
Summary: "	“Is it messed up?” says Hanna, linking her arm in Aria’s. “To miss her so much, I mean.”“Everything about us is messed up,” says Aria truthfully. “So it’s okay.”/Hanna misses Mona, Aria and Spencer exchange a lot of glances, and some strange truths come out over dinner. 3 years post finale.





	no friend

Hanna’s on her fourth glass of wine, and Aria and Spencer have started exchanging worried glances. Emily and Alison stayed in with the kids tonight, they had to cancel last minute because they couldn’t find a sitter, and Spencer knows they feel bad, but she could also hear the happiness of such a small, mundane problem bubbling over the phone when Emily called to let her know.

Spencer understands. The other day the dishwasher stopped working and she spent half the evening in front of it on the phone with the plumber, and after she hung up, after the dishwasher was turning on and obediently cleaning dishes again, she actually sat on the floor, leaned against it, and cried for a full half hour. Cried because she lived, somehow, in a world where her biggest problem of the day was a dishwasher breaking. Cried because they had survived, they were all alive, and her dishwasher was fixed.

(Toby had come and seen her crying on the floor and been terrified, and all she could do was look up and say,  _ babe, the dishwasher’s fixed. _ And then she cried some more.)

“I just miss her,” Hanna says, setting the glass on the table so it shakes slightly. “I just - god. Damn. She was the original. She started it all. But I still  _ miss _ her. How effin’...how messed up  _ is  _ that?”

“I still miss Ezra,” offers Aria, who is the designated driver and thus entirely sober, but in the second month after her divorce had been finalized, is becoming slowly accustomed to such bursts of truth, even without any help. “And he stalked all of us.” 

“It’s not the  _ same,  _ though,” says Hanna emphatically. “You know? it’s  _ different. _ ”

“Han, it’s okay,” says Spencer, sensing she should just cut this off. Spencer has had a single glass of wine. That was all Spencer ever had. She is, at any given moment, on some kind of medication, and it’s all triggering enough for her to tempt her system - which always, always craves, in some hidden part of her, the release of that specific type of oblivion - with anything more.

“It’s not,” says Hanna firmly. Aria quietly pulls her wineglass away from her, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Hanna shakes her head firmly. “It’s not okay.” She stares off into space. “She hit me with an effin'…  _ car. _ ”

Aria snorts. “I forgot about that,” she says, twisting her fingers. “That was almost ten years ago.”

“We’re so old,” says Spencer, trying to change the subject. “We’re gonna be twenty six.”

“Holy hell,” mumbles Hanna. She shakes her head. “We were friends when we were fifteen,” she says. “And just…” She runs her hands through her short, messy bob. “ _ How  _ am I still...how do I still  _ miss  _ her?”

“She disappeared,” says Aria. “It’s hard to know how to feel about people who disappear.” Aria is not looking at Spencer, and Spencer doesn’t think about her biological mother.

“Yeah. I guess.” Hanna sighs heavily, leaning her head on the table, and Aria and Spencer can’t help but grin at each other across the table. It is a scene so remniscent of high school. She lifts her head back up and tips back in her chair. “Do you guys know I wanted to name Ashlynne after her?”

Spencer raises her eyebrows. “You  _ what?” _

“Yeah,” says Hanna. “Yeah. In my last month of pregnancy, I wanted to name the baby Mona.” She laughs bitterly, her laugh too high, too sloppy, too broken. “Isn’t that the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard?” Her hands are shaking. “Mona started it. Mona is the whole reason we’re sitting here at twenty five, all three of us ten kinds of messed up, and I  _ wanted to name  _ my  _ baby  _ after her.”

“Okay, Hanna.” Spencer lies her hands on Hanna’s. “Okay.” She looks at Aria, who’s eyes are quizzical as she feels.  _ She doesn’t know what she’s saying, _ she thinks.  _ She can’t. _

“You guys just think..” Unexpectedly, Hanna yawns enormously. “You guys just think I’m drunk, and dunno what’m saying. But it’s  _ true. _ ” She focuses on Spencer, even as her hand shakes beneath hers. “It’s true. I was nine months pregnant and emotional as hell and I missed Mona. I missed Mona, and I wanted to name Ashlynne after her.” She shook her head. “Caleb said no. For good reason. That would’ve been stupid.”

For a while, they are quiet, neither Aria nor Spencer entirely sure whether to believe this, but neither of them wanting to say anything, either. 

“We should get home,” says Aria eventually. 

“Yeah,” says Spencer. Hanna sighs heavily, and they all rise, Spencer going to pick up the tab, and Hanna and Aria turning towards the door, ambling out through the parking lot towards Aria’s Mazardi.

“Is it messed up?” says Hanna, linking her arm in Aria’s. “To miss her so much, I mean.”

“Everything about us is messed up,” says Aria truthfully. “So it’s okay.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Hanna is silent while they cross the parking lot, while they get in the car, as Spencer joins them and they begin to drive home, as they have a hundred, thousand times. She is silent as Spencer and Aria talk quietly in the front seats, about innocuous things. About Spencer’s law exams coming up, about something Toby said last night. About the characters at Aria’s photography studio, about the people she works with there. About Lily and Grace and how sweetly they are growing, how they both look remarkably like Ali, biologically impossibly so. About the adorable blossoming friendship between Ashlynne and Lily and Grace. About Veronica, about Ella, about Mike, a million normal things, until Aria pulls into Hanna’s drive.

“Thanks, guys,” says Hanna, opening the door. “Love you guys. Sorry for being stupid.”

“It’s okay, Han,” says Spencer, opening her own door to walk her to the front. And she does, hugging her tight, Caleb coming down to meet her at the door, and once Hanna goes to bed, Spencer looks at Caleb for a moment. 

“Did Hanna really want to name the baby Mona?” she says quietly, because she needs to know, but they never ask each other about the things they admit during panic attacks or drunk. It is one of the many unwritten rules that the girls have implemented in their years of healing. It is, Spencer thinks wryly - maybe a thought borne of that one glass of wine - their own way of playing the game now.

“Yeah,” says Caleb, not even looking all that surprise that she asked. “Yeah.”

There isn’t really anyting else to say after that, and Aria drops Spencer home, and she crawls into bed next to Toby, who stirs sleepily, finding her hand under the covers.

“Have a good night, babe?” he mumbles.

“Yeah,” says Spencer, resting her head against his chest. “Yeah.”

Aria still misses Ezra, and Emily will still absently mention Sara Harvey, and Allison still misses Charlotte, and Spencer, as hard as she tries to pull her heart away, still thinks about Mary Drake and the girl with her face every single day. They miss all the people who have hurt them. This has always been part of what hurt them so badly.

But Hanna missing Mona so much she almost named her entire baby after her, Spencer feels like it’s slipped under her skin. Like it’s set her back a little, somehow, even though she never says anything. Somehow, it makes her feel that after everyone - after everything - after all of it - Mona still beat them all. Mona still wins, every single day. 

 


End file.
